0521863813 cambridge university press foxes book of martyrs and early modern print culture oct 2006

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Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern
Print Culture379577

Second only to the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, John Foxe’s
Acts and Monuments, known as the Book of Martyrs, was the most
influential book published in England during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The most complex and best-illustrated English book of its time, it recounted in detail the experiences of
hundreds of people who were burnt alive for their religious beliefs.
John N. King offers the most comprehensive investigation yet of
the compilation, printing, publication, illustration, and reception
of the Book of Martyrs. He charts its reception across different
editions by learned and unlearned, sympathetic and antagonistic
readers. The many illustrations included here, most of which are
reproduced for the first time, introduce readers to the visual features
of early printed books and general printing practices both in England
and continental Europe, and enhance this important contribution to
early modern literary studies, cultural and religious history, and the
History of the Book.
JOHN N. KING

is Distinguished University Professor and Humanities
Distinguished Professor of English and of Religious Studies at The
Ohio State University. He is the author of English Reformation
Literature: The Tudor Origins of the Protestant Tradition (1982),
Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious
Crisis (1989), Spenser’s Poetry and the Reformation Tradition (1990),
Milton and Religious Controversy: Satire and Polemic in Paradise Lost

(Cambridge, 2000), and many essays and reviews. He has edited The
Vocation of John Bale, Anne Askew’s Examinations, and Voices of the
English Reformation: A Source Book. He is co-editor of John Foxe and
His World. He serves as editor of Reformation and co-editor of
Literature and History.



Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early
Modern Print Culture
JOHN N. KING

The Ohio State University


CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521863810
© John N. King 2006
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2006
eBook (EBL)
ISBN-13 978-0-511-34886-0

ISBN-10 0-511-34886-X
eBook (EBL)
ISBN-13
ISBN-10

hardback
978-0-521-86381-0
hardback
0-521-86381-3

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.


224934

In honor of James Bracken, Joseph Branin, Joseph Derbyshire,
Rachel Doggett, Lotte Hellinga, Richard Kuhta, Paul Morgan,
David Paisey, Barbara Smith, Geoffrey Smith,
William Studer, J. B. Trapp, Georgianna Ziegler, and
the worldwide fellowship of librarians.



Contents
365560

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments

List of abbreviations
Note on texts
Introduction
1 The compilation of the book
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.

“John Foxe, author”
A network of collaborators
Models for the book
Manuscript witnesses
Editing and glossing: from manuscript to print

2 The Book of Martyrs in the printing house
A. John Foxe and the printing trade
B. John Day, master printer of the English Reformation
C. The Books of Martyrs
1. First edition (1563)
2. Second edition (1570)
3. Third edition (1576)
4. Fourth edition (1583)
5. Bright’s Abridgment (1589)
6. Fifth and sixth editions (1596–97 and 1610)
7. Abridgments by Cotton, Mason, and Taylor
(1613–16)
8. Seventh edition (1631–32)
9. Eighth edition (1641) and mid-seventeenth-century

selections
10. Ninth edition (1684)

3 Viewing the pictures
A. John Day and the illustration of books
B. The pattern of illustration
C. Hearing words

page ix
xiii
xvi
xvii
1
21
23
25
37
45
58

70
71
80
92
93
112
123
129
133
135

139
145
150
157

162
166
175
196


viii

Contents
D. Image and text
E. Responses of viewers

4 Reading the pages

201
230

243

A. Addresses to readers
B. Calendars of saints
C. Book owners and libraries
D. Responses of readers

244

249
267
284

Glossary of printing terms of the hand-press era
Select bibliography
Index

321
325
341


Illustrations

Unless otherwise noted, illustrations are of or from editions of the Book
of Martyrs.
1. Selected editions and abridgments. By permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library.
page 2
2. Title page (1563). By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
4
3. Almery cupboard from the parish of Gorton. By courtesy of
Chetham’s Library, Manchester.
6
4. Almery bookcase from the parish of Bolton-on-the-Moors.
Reproduced from Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Chained Library:
A Survey of Four Centuries in the Evolution of the English
Library (London: Macmillan and Co., 1931), p. 301.

7
5. The Tree of Jesse, Nuremberg Chronicle. By courtesy of
the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
13
6. Detail from letter from John Philpot to Lady Elizabeth
Vane. By permission of the British Library.
17
7. Selected abridgments. By permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library.
19
8. Title page of Foxe’s Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum.
By courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscript Library at
The Ohio State University.
75
9. Preface from Foxe’s Rerum in ecclesia gestarum. . . .
commentarii. By permission of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library
at the University of Pennsylvania.
79
10. Problem with casting off text. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
99
11. Typography for English and Latin text. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
100
12. A Vulgate Bible. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
103

x

List of illustrations

13. Oporinus’s edition of Plato’s Complete Works. By
courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
at The Ohio State University.
14. Alley’s The Poor Man’s Library. By courtesy of the Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
15. English-language glosses on Latin text. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
16. Marginal diples. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
17. Anglo-Saxon typesetting. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
18. The burning of John Wyclif ’s bones. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
19. An assortment of small type sizes. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
20. The imprisonment of Thomas Bilney. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
21. Recut title page (1641). By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
22. Title page opening (1684). By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
23. The reign of Edward VI. By courtesy of the Rare Books and

Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
24. John Day’s woodcut of the execution of Anne Askew. By
courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The
Ohio State University.
25. English royal arms. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
26. Edward VI receiving a book. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
27. German woodcut of the execution of Anne Askew. By
permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
28. Hugh Latimer preaching before Edward VI. By courtesy
of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio
State University.

104
106

110
119
122

124
130

154
155
158
165

170

171
172
178

180


List of illustrations

29. Allegory of Christian justice. By courtesy of the Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
30. Communal Bible reading. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
31. Elizabeth I as Constantine I. By courtesy of the Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
32. King Henry IV at Canossa. By courtesy of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
33. Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa. By permission
of the Henry E. Huntington Library.
34. Space for pasting of woodcut. By courtesy of the Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
35. The imprisonment of Robert Smith and others. By courtesy
of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
36. The burning of William Gardiner. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
37. The execution of William Tyndale. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
38. The execution of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. By
courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at

The Ohio State University.
39. Ten persecutions of the primitive church. By permission
of John N. King.
40. The saints in glory. By permission of the British Library.
41. The execution of St. Lawrence. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
42. Papal judgment with coat of arms. By courtesy of the Rare
Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
43. Allegory of the Henrician Reformation. By courtesy of
the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio
State University.
44. Edmund Bonner flogging a prisoner. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
45. Edmund Bonner burning the hand of Thomas Tomkins.
By courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at
The Ohio State University.

181
184
187
188
189
191

198
203
205

208

210
213
215
218

219

225

234

xi


xii

List of illustrations

46. The Blessed Virgin Mary. By courtesy of the Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State University.
47. The imprisonment of John Philpot and Thomas Whittle.
By courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
at The Ohio State University.
48. The burning of Lawrence Saunders. By courtesy of the
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at The Ohio State
University.
49. The calendar. By permission of John N. King.
50. Title page, Lever’s History of the Defenders of the Catholic
Faith. By courtesy of the Rare Books and Manuscripts
Library at

The Ohio State University.
51. John Ward’s notebook. By permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library.

235

238

240
251

306
310


Acknowledgments
323385

It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge debts that have compounded
during the course of this project and others. For their generous provision
of an intellectual home at rare book and manuscript collections on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean, I am grateful to the librarians to whom this
book is indebted. I could not have completed this project without access to
the extraordinarily rich collection of multiple copies of all of the early
modern editions of the Book of Martyrs at The Ohio State University. I am
deeply grateful to librarians who invited me to collaborate in its acquisition, as well as to Harry Campbell, Head of Conservation. Staff members
at our Rare Book and Manuscripts Library were invariably helpful. They
include Elva Griffith, Douglas Scherer, James Smith, Keith Lazuka, and
Kyle Roberts. My indebtedness at the Folger Shakespeare Library extends
beyond the individuals mentioned in the dedication to Gail Kern Paster,

Director of the Library, to Laetitia Yeandle and Heather Wolfe, and to
Elizabeth Walsh and her unfailingly helpful colleagues in the Reading
Room. Completion of this project owes much to librarians who granted
access to essential materials at other collections. They include the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, British Library, Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Chetham Library, Henry E. Huntington Library, Lambeth
Palace Library, National Library of Scotland, Van Pelt Library at the
University of Pennsylvania, Warburg Institute, York Minster Library,
University of York Library, the library of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and libraries at the following Oxford colleges: Brasenose College, HarrisManchester College, Hereford College, Magdalen College, and Merton
College.
Among personal obligations, I am indebted in particular to James
Bracken, with whom I have collaborated on projects related to John Foxe
and early modern printing; to Mark Rankin, for his impeccable assistance
in completing this book; to the external reviewers for Cambridge University Press, who provided many helpful comments; and to Richard Dutton,
Christopher Highley, and Luke Wilson for many stimulating conversations. I also acknowledge very helpful assistance in research afforded by
Mark Bayer, Marisa Cull, Steven Galbraith, and Justin Pepperney. Marisa


xiv

Acknowledgments

Cull compiled the index with diligence and grace. Christopher Manion
extended valuable assistance with Latin. Colleagues at The Ohio State
University have offered generous assistance, encouragement, and wise
counsel. They include Deborah Burks, Benjamin David, David Frantz,
Sarah-Grace Heller, Hannibal Hamlin, Valerie Lee, Anthony Kaldelis,
Joseph Lynch, James Phelan, and Christian Zacher. Their extramural
counterparts include Thomas Betteridge, J. Scott Colley, Patrick Collinson,
Thomas Freeman, Darryl Gless, Mark Greengrass, Andrew Hadfield, Lotte
Hellinga, David Scott Kastan, Gordon Kipling, David Loades, Barbara

Kiefer Lewalski, the late Ruth Samson Luborsky, David Norbrook, Anne
Lake Prescott, Peter Stallybrass, and the late J. B. Trapp. I am especially
thankful to Linda Bree, Literature Editor at Cambridge University Press,
for her unswerving support of this project. For assistance in thinking
through a variety of issues, I am indebted to participants in a 2001
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College
and University Teachers on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern
English Print Culture that I directed with James Bracken and to graduate
students in a seminar on the History of the Book that I conducted in 2003.
For astute copyediting, I am indebted to Ann Lewis. Of course, all
remaining errors of fact or interpretation are my own.
Although I have studied the Book of Martyrs for many decades, work on
this particular book effectively began during a residency at the National
Humanities Center as a Lilly Fellow in Religion and the Humanities
(1997). I thank the American Council of Learned Societies for a fellowship
that enabled me to complete most of the writing during the 2003–2004
academic year. The Bibliographical Society of America, Folger Shakespeare
Library, Henry E. Huntington Library, and Renaissance Society of America
generously provided short-term fellowships. Different entities at The Ohio
State University have supported this project through the provision of
released time for research or grant assistance. In addition to my indebtedness to the Department of Women’s Studies for its award of a Coca Cola
Grant for the Study of Women and Gender, I am grateful in particular to
the Department of English, College of Humanities, and Office of Research
at The Ohio State University. I completed the writing of this book at Villa
Serbelloni, which overlooks Lake Como at Bellagio. I am grateful to the
Rockefeller Foundation for providing this opportunity to work at its
tranquil study center alongside new friends from around the world.
For opportunities to deliver portions of this argument in the form of
invited lectures, I am grateful to the Early Modern Colloquium at the
University of Michigan (2004), Renaissance English Text Society and

Acknowledgments

Renaissance Society of America (2004), South Central Renaissance Conference (2003), and the Fifth International John Foxe Colloquium, which
met at the University of Cambridge in 2004. I am also grateful for editorial
permission to include in revised and expanded form findings previously
published in “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the History of the Book,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 30 (2004), pp. 171–96; and “Guides to
Reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,” Huntington Library Quarterly 68
(2005), pp. 133–50.
My greatest obligation is to Pauline and Jonathan, my wife and son, for
sustaining this project for many years.

xv


Abbreviations

A&M

John Foxe, Acts and Monuments of the English Church (also
known as the Book of Martyrs), 1st–9th editions (1563–1684).
BL
British Library.
ERL
John N. King, English Reformation Literature: The Tudor Origins
of the Protestant Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1982).
FL
Folger Shakespeare Library.

HL
Henry E. Huntington Library.
JFER
John Foxe and the English Reformation, ed. David Loades
(Aldershot: Scolar, 1997).
JFHA
John Foxe at Home and Abroad, ed. David Loades (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2004).
JFHP
John Foxe: An Historical Perspective, ed. David Loades (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 1999).
JFHW John Foxe and His World, ed. Christopher Highley and John
N. King (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).
L&I
Luborsky, Ruth Samson, and Elizabeth Morley Ingram, A Guide
to English Illustrated Books, 1536–1603, 2 vols. (Tempe: MRTS,
1998).
Mozley J. F. Mozley, John Foxe and His Book (London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1940).
OSU
Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, The Ohio State University
Libraries, Columbus, OH.
SPART John N. King, Spenser’s Poetry and the Reformation Tradition
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
TRI
John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an
Age of Religious Crisis, Princeton Essays on the Arts (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1989).
Voices John N. King, ed., Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

Note on texts
323385

Unless otherwise noted, London is the place of publication in pre-1900
books, and reference is to first editions. In the absence of pagination,
I provide signature references from which I have omitted the abbreviation
sig. Quotations from early printed books observe modern use of i/j, u/v,
and w. Contractions are expanded, and book titles are supplied in abbreviated form with modernized spelling. I regularize typography to accord
with modern usage. Literatim transcriptions from manuscripts and a
xylographic woodcut contain expansions of brevigraphs and abbreviations
in italics. All dates are in new style. Scriptural references are to The New
English Bible with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press,
1971). I often refer silently to the following resources: ODNB; STC; The
New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Detroit and Washington, DC: Thomson/Gale Group in association with the Catholic University of America,
2003); The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed. (Chicago: Encyclopædia
Britannica, 1986); and The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., prepared by
J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, 20 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989). Available online at />Because the present investigation focuses on the materiality and artifactuality of specific copies of early modern editions of A&M, it avoids
reference to folio editions, abridgements, and selections printed after the
1680s. I refer throughout to copies of the early printed editions for textual
references, evidence concerning typography and page layout, and copyspecific evidence concerning reception history (e.g., handwritten notes
entered by readers). Unless otherwise noted, this study refers to multiple
copies of A&M preserved at OSU. I also refer to my examination of a
large number of copies of early editions that are preserved at the library
collections cited in the Acknowledgments. The textual corruption of the
nineteenth-century editions of A&M is now commonly acknowledged due
to bibliographical studies cited during the course of the present study.
Their defects undergo correction in the online genetic edition of the first

four editions of A&M, which represents a great boon to scholarship.
Its provision of textual variations that make each of the 1563–83 editions
unique is particularly important. Although the posting of textual


xviii

Note on texts

transcriptions in A&M (online) is now complete, the present state of its
commentary provides material concerning the reign of Mary I (i.e., Books
10–12 of the 1570–83 editions in addition to corresponding text in the
1563 version). The remainder of the commentary is forthcoming. Although I completed the writing of this book prior to the publication of
the online version, I have incorporated references to introductory essays
that were accessible as of 30 May 2005. I provide uncorrected pagination
for all editions, but the reader may refer to A&M (online) in order to
obtain corrected pagination for the four earliest editions.


Introduction

The present study constitutes the history of a book that epitomizes the
history of the book in early modern England. This inquiry investigates
the exemplarity of the Book of Martyrs as a collection that embodies a
range of practices related to early modern English printing, publication,
and reception that is virtually complete. At the very same time, we must
recognize that this extraordinary compilation is unlike any other book
published in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. John Foxe’s vast
collection of unforgettable accounts of religious persecution and related
documents centers on the experience of hundreds of people who were

burnt alive for their religious beliefs during the reign of Mary I (1553–58).
Foxe oversaw expansion of his martyrological history from about 55,000
words in its initial Latin installment to a text that ballooned from about
1.8 to 3.8 million words in four vernacular editions overseen by Foxe and
his publisher, John Day. Nearly four times the length of the Bible,1 the
monumental fourth edition is the most physically imposing, complicated,
and technically demanding English book of its era (see Figure 1). The
second edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) may be somewhat longer,
but it lacks the complexity of paratext and spectacular woodcut illustration that made Foxe’s history the best-illustrated English book of its time.
No other early modern English book exceeds it in length. Taking on a life
of its own after the death of the compiler and his publisher, John Day, the
Book of Martyrs appeared in five more unabridged editions by 1684.
Revered by many Protestants as a “holy” book, it was frequently chained
alongside the Bible for reading by ordinary people at many public places
including cathedrals, churches, schools, libraries, guildhalls, and at least
one inn. Exemplifying textual instability and multiple authorship, each
edition reflects its historical moment both as an ideological construction
and as an artifact of the hand-operated press. Containing an extraordinary
array of genres (E.g., martyrologies, poems, speeches, tracts, biographies,
historical documents, spiritual memoirs, letters, and more), these editions
1

The length of the King James’s Version (1611), including the Apocrypha, approximates 900,000
words. Word estimates for A&M exclude headlines and text in margins.


2

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture

manifest a full range of printing practices that appeal to more and less
learned readers. They include the interplay of different type founts, marginal glosses, woodcuts or engravings, two-color printing, cross-references,
and indices.
The chief question posed by this study concerns how this aggregation of
documents came to exert a greater influence on the consciousness of early
modern England than any other book aside from the English Bible and
Book of Common Prayer. Close examination of multiple copies of each
edition suggests that Foxe’s untiring energy as a collector of documents
and his command of sophisticated editorial procedures, in combination
with his publisher’s mastery of book production and sales, enabled the
Book of Martyrs to promote change in religion, national identity, and
intellectual and social life. Not only does this study situate the Book of
Martyrs within the context of printing and publication in London, but it
also considers continental antecedents and the interchange between
the circulation of manuscripts and printing of books. Exemplifying a

1. Selected editions and abridgements of the Book of Martyrs: The unabridged folio editions of 1583
(2 vols. bound as 1) and 1641–42 (3 vols.); Thomas Mason’s Christ’s Victory Over Satan’s Tyranny
(1615) in folio; first edition of Clement Cotton’s The Mirror of Martyrs (1613) in duodecimo format.


Introduction

complete constellation of features associated with early modern English
print culture, Foxe’s book serves as a window into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English cultural history. Each of the four editions produced during the lifetime of Foxe and his publisher, John Day, contains
unique additions and/or deletions of material that render the text of each
edition significantly different from the others. Each of the posthumous
editions also contains significant additions contributed by different continuators. Furthermore, a variety of abridgments reshaped the text in
radically different ways. The impact of this book on worldwide Anglophone culture endures to the present day, albeit in highly distorted forms,
in reprints, abridgments, movies, and websites.

The present investigation observes the practice of contemporary booksellers and readers, who referred to the Book of Martyrs, a short title that
may have originated in a similar headline in the first edition (pp. 85–173,
178–79). The formal title makes up in precision for what it lacks in
conciseness and elegance:
Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the
Church, wherein ar comprehended and described the great persecutions & horrible
troubles, that have bene wrought and practised by the Romishe Prelates, speciallye in
this Realme of England and Scotlande, from the yeare of our Lorde a thousande, unto
the tyme nowe present. Gathered and collected according to the true copies &
wrytinges certificatorie, as wel of the parties them selves that suffered, as also out of
the Bishops Registers, which wer the doers therof, by John Foxe.

It was the prerogative of the publisher, John Day, to craft the title page
(Figure 2) in the form of an advertisement for this costly book, which
went on sale in 1563 at the bookshop beneath the printing house at his
premises within London Wall. Not only was his shop located at the edge of
the booksellers’ district that surrounded St. Paul’s Cathedral, but it was
also ideally situated to appeal to those who passed through Aldersgate en
route to and from London via the Great North Road.2 It seems likely that
Foxe collaborated in the composition of this detailed descriptive title of
the history of the “true” church from the time of John Wyclif until the
reign of Mary I. After all, he declares that “I wrote no such booke bearyng
the title of the booke of Martyrs. I wrote a booke called the Actes and
Monumentes . . . Wherin many other matters bee contayned beside the
Martyrs of Christ” (1570, p. 694). Foxe’s preference for this discursive title
furthermore reflects the fact that the unabridged text constitutes much
2

For the vicinity of Day’s premises, see Voices, map 1 and fig. 7.

3


4

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture

2. The left- and right-hand sides of the title-page woodcut of the Book of Martyrs
(1563) respectively portray “true” versus “false” religion. Insets at the bottom offer
contrasting caricatures of Protestant versus Roman Catholic worship. The sun-bright
Tetragrammaton at the lower left symbolizes divine illumination of a congregation that
includes figures who read the Bible as the preacher delivers a sermon. The opposed
vignette depicts individuals who tell their rosary beads as a friar preaches and a Corpus
Christi procession proceeds toward a roadside shrine. At the apex of this Judgment
scene, Christ welcomes the souls of the saved and condemns the falling angels and
priests who celebrate the Mass beneath them.


Introduction

more than a collection of martyrologies. Nevertheless, printers and publishers used the short title in records kept by the Company of Stationers,
and the eighth edition (1641) bears the half-title of “THE BOOKE OF
MARTYRS.” It was under this half-title, therefore, that stock keepers at the
Stationers’ warehouse stored copies of this book after the Company
acquired its copyright.
Purchasers encountered this half-title in unbound gatherings displayed
at bookshops in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London or in the stalls
of provincial booksellers. Purchasers included the parochial library at Gorton in Lancashire, which acquired its copy of the 1641 version out of the
proceeds of a bequest from a prosperous merchant of Manchester. Parish
officials originally planned to chain it for safekeeping within a wooden

book chest whose carved inscription – “THE GIFT OF HUMPHREY
CHETHAM ESQUIRE 1655” – commemorates this pious benefaction
(Figure 3). A recipient of the ninth edition (1684), the nearby parish library
at Bolton-on-the-Moors, chained its copy to the top shelf of a wooden
chest whose inscription commemorates a benefaction from a well-to-do
Londoner who had some connection to this parish in Lancashire: “THE
GIFT OF MR JAMES LEAVER CITISON OF LONDON 1694”
(Figure 4). The calfskin binding of each of its three volumes bears a brass
plate that proclaims further that Leaver donated it during the same year.3
During the early modern era, donations of the Book of Martyrs to parish
libraries and other institutions sometimes discharged a memorial function
roughly analogous to medieval practices that commemorated the dead.
This book sanitizes increasingly dim memories of monastic libraries,
however, by excluding allegedly superstitious material. Long after religious
reformers demolished shrines and eradicated chantry chapels during the
Edwardian Reformation, gifts of books and libraries continued to commemorate the piety of evangelical donors. Prior to the destruction of
chantries during the reign of Edward VI (1547–53), mortuary endowments and bequests underwrote the singing of perpetual Masses for the
dead. Not only did the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (“scripture
alone”) entail rejection of purgatory and intercessory prayers, but it also
supplanted older modes of commemoration. This shift provided donors
with an opportunity to give devotional books as a pious act.4 Foxe’s quasiiconic book accordingly joined the Bible in occupying cultural space left
3
4

For discussion of these donations and book chests, see Chapter 4.C.
See Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002), pp. 281–84.

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